Biological Warfare

Biological weapons have been used as part of an arsenal during warfare for centuries. For example, ancient battle records suggest that diseased human remains and cattle that had died of microbial diseases were used to poison wells. In the spring of 1346, after a Mongol army attempted an overtake of the Crimean city of Caffa for three years without success, the Mongols gathered a number of their own people who had died of the plague, laid them on their catapults, and hurled them into the town. Eventually, the plague spread through Caffa causing residents to flee. It is quite possible that the successful conquest of the town by the Mongols may have resulted in the most damaging attack using biological weapons in world history. In the 1760s, a rebellion among Native Americans was countered when Lord Jeffrey Amherst, then commander-in-chief of British forces, suggested grinding pox scabs (pustule scabs) into blankets intended for distribution to members of an Ohio tribe. The disease broke out among the Native Americans, ending the rebellion.

During the twentieth century, a trend of designer biological weapons targeted for larger, more defined military objectives became more prevalent. Research projects aimed at developing anthrax-based biological weapon programs during World War II were initiated by Canada, the United States, and Britain. Britain produced anthrax-based weapons at the United Kingdom Chemical and Biological Defense Establishment at the Porton Down facility that were intended to be dropped on Germany to infect their food supply (reportedly, they were never used). Prisoners in Nazi Germany concentration camps were infected with pathogens, such as hepatitis A, Plasmodium falciparum, as well as other types of a bacteria for unclear research objectives. Countries such as Japan also conducted extensive biological weapons research during World War II while occupying part of China. Prisoners were infected with a variety of bacterial pathogens, including Neisseria meningitis, Bacillus anthracis (anthrax), and Yersinia pestis. It has been estimated that over 10,000 prisoners died as a result of either infection or execution following infection. In addition, biological agents contaminated the food and water supply. It is also thought that approximately 15 million potentially plague-infected fleas were released from Japanese aircrafts, affecting many Chinese cities with an estimated 10,000 illnesses and 1,700 deaths.

The development of airborne biological weapons make biological warfare particularly dangerous. For example, British open-air testing of anthrax weapons in 1941 on Gruinard Island in Scotland rendered the island uninhabitable for five decades. The United States Army conducted a study in 1951–52 called Operation Sea Spray to study how wind currents might effect the dispersion of bioagents. As part of the project design, balloons were filled with Serratia marcescens (then thought to be relatively harmless) and exploded over San Francisco. Reportedly, there was a corresponding significant increase in the number of pneumonia and urinary tract infections. In 1979, an accidental release of anthrax spores (approximately a gram for several minutes) at a bioweapons facility near the Russian city of Sverdlovsk, infected 77 and killed 66 people that were approximately 2.5 mi (4 km) downwind of the facility. Sheep and cattle up to 31 mi (50 km) downwind also became ill. From these events, anthrax is considered one of the most deadly biological weapons. A dose of 10,000 spores, or one millionth of a gram, is fatal within days after exposure in 90–100% of the population. According to the U.S. Congress Office of Technology Assessment, an aircraft that drops 220 lb (100 kg) of anthrax over a city under normal weather conditions would be lethal for approximately one to three million people. Skin contact with spores can also produce a less lethal, but dangerous cutaneous anthrax infection. Without antibiotic treatment, the mortality rate for cutaneous anthrax is 10–20% and with treatment, the mortality rate falls to less than 1%.

The first diplomatic effort to reduce biological warfare was initiated by the international community in 1925 and called the Geneva Protocol, a treaty prohibiting the development and use of any form of biological weapon in war. During the 1950s and 1960s, the United States constructed research facilities to develop antisera, vaccines, and equipment for protection against a possible biological attack as well as the use of microorganisms as offensive weapons. Since then, other initiatives to ban the use of biological warfare and/or destroy the stockpiles of biological weapons have been attempted. Despite the international prohibitions, the existence of biological weapons remains an impending and growing threat. In 1972, 87 nations, including the United States, signed the Biological Weapons Convention Treaty, which banned the development, testing, and storage of such weapons. For a time, it appeared that the world agreed to ban biological weapons. By the 1980s, the political mood had changed. In 1982, President Ronald Reagan declared that world politics justified research on biological and chemical weapons and that the United States would return to a more ambitious program.

Over the last decade, an emphasis on the development of chemical toxins and the development of genetically engineered biological weapons emerged due to international political instability in several countries, along with the uprising of extremist groups and disestablishmentarianism in the Middle East. During the Persian Gulf War, U.S. troops were exposed to an uncertain source of biological weapons leading to what are called the Gulf War Illnesses. In Iraq, five hidden laboratories were discovered that were designed to refine and stockpile several biological weapons including anthrax, botulism, and gas gangrene bacteria. In 1997, Secretary of Defense William Cohen pinpointed Libya, Iraq, Syria, and Iran as countries that were launching aggressive biological weapon development programs. In 1998, several scientists that were part of the former Soviet Union's biological and chemical weapons programs were reported to have been recruited to develop biological warfare in Libya. Not long after the terrorist attacks on the U.S. World Trade Center and Pentagon in 2001, the postal service was used by terrorists (possibly unrelated to World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks) to deliver anthrax by mail to several locations within the U.S. On October 4, 2001, a 63-year-old man was reported to have contracted the first known intentionally inflicted case of inhalation anthrax in the U.S. By the time the outbreak was contained, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control reported 23 cases of inhaled or cutaneous anthrax (19 confirmed, 4 suspected), including five deaths.